Hermann Park Tops Off 15 Years of Hats in the Park Lunch on a Supremely Springy Day

Jenny Antill
Hermann Park Tops Off 15 Years of Hats in the Park Lunch on a Supremely Springy Day

Holly Radom, Audrey White, Allie Fields and Julie Longoria Chen

IT SEEMS LIKE Houston has been toggling between winter and summer for a few weeks now, but during a stretch of true springtime weather last week, Hermann Park Conservancy hosted the Hats in the Park luncheon at McGovern Centennial Gardens.


This year marked the 15th anniversary of the occasion, which has had a measurable impact on Hermann Park and its six-million visitors each year. Event co-chairs Kristy Bradshaw, Kelley Lubanko and Leigh Smith greeted guests during the Champagne reception preceding the seated lunch on the verdant lawn. Bradshaw shared updates regarding the park's forthcoming McWilliams Dog Park and Commons projects — the latter of which will include a "40-foot rocket ship slide and whimsical carousel" — and Mayor Sylvester Turner also gave remarks, praising the Conservancy for its preservation and betterment of the community resource.

The afternoon honored Ann Short and Susie Criner, who chaired the very first Hats in the Park lunch in 2008. In total, the event raised upwards of $520,000 — a record! Hats off to that.

Valerie Dieterich and Roslyn Bazzelle Mitchell

Alex Blair, Brigitte Kalai and Aliza Fan Dutt

Stephanie Tsuru, Elizabeth Wagett, Katie Tsuru and Donae Chramosta

Alice Mao Brams and Yoon Smith

Sanford and Susie Criner

Bethany Buchanan, Hallie Vanderhider, Fady Armanious and Chita Craft

Rachel Solar, Brooke Bently-Gunst, Lindsey Brown and Maria Vilchez-Lowrey

Chelsea Pacey, Lori Speier, Anne Calder

Nicole Katz, Carolyn Tanner and Tracy Hale

Demetra Jones, Kenneth Allen and Doreen Stoller

Nicola Fuentes Toubia and DeVaun Barbir

Duyen Nguyen, Debbie Festari and Carrie Brandsberg-Dahl

Lynn Wyatt

Heather Waters, Kim Tutcher, Brenda Love and Jana Arnoldy

Lesia Crumpton-Young and Anne-Laure Stephens

Kelley Lubanko, Leigh Smith and Kristy Bradshaw

Anne Calder, Rae Solberg, Jayne Johnston and Heather Safi

Isabel David and Rishma Mohamed

Kate Bellin

Katie Forney and Linsay Radcliffe

Style

A detail of Konoshima Okoku's 'Tigers,' 1902

THROUGHOUT THE HOT — and hopefully hurricane-free — months of summer, visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston can step through a portal and experience another era with Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, on view through Sept. 15.

Keep Reading Show less

Jacob Hilton a.k.a. Travid Halton

THERE IS A long recorded history of musicians applying their melodic and lyrical gifts to explore the darker corners of human existence and navigate a pathway toward healing and redemption. You have the Blues and Spirituals, of course, which offer transcendence amid tragedy in all of its guises. And then there’s Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours, and Beyoncé’s Lemonade, three wildly divergent examples of the album as a cathartic, psychological, conceptual work meant to be experienced in a single sitting, much like one sits still to read a short story or a novel.

Keep Reading Show less
Art + Entertainment